Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games – I know I'm good, but I'm not that good. I do, however, own the Underground District and all its people!

Note: I haven't read catching fire, so sorry for any mistakes I may make!

Prologue: The Renegades

"What wonderful surprise will they have in store for us today, I wonder?" Peeta's sarcasm, while not lost on me, goes completely unnoticed by Effie.

"Oh, I wouldn't call it wonderful, as such," she starts. Effie is not quite her overly perky self today, and I can't help wondering why. While a cheerful Effie is really irritating, a miserable Effie is worse, because that means there's something very wrong.

Peeta and I exchange glances, but that tells me nothing. His face is unreadable. Is he worried too? Or is he just fed up of having to go all over Panem, visiting different places. We are the Victors. He hates that title as much as I do, and parading it around isn't what either of us really wants.

Finally, the train glides smoothly to a halt. The bottom of my shirt is all creased from the way I've been pleating the fabric out of sheer boredom for the past half hour, and I smooth it out as Effie glares in my direction.

"Come along," she says crisply, and Peeta and I follow, out of habit.

I haven't been paying much attention to the landscape we've been passing, and I'm expecting to have arrived in another District. Instead, though, the landscape around us is barren, seemingly uninhabited. With the exception of one long, low, grey brick building in the distance, there is nothing but parched, dry grass for miles and miles. A man in a brown shirt and black trousers waits for us beside the tracks. I wouldn't call it a platform, exactly, since there's nothing there. His dark reddish hair is slicked back, his skin an unhealthy pallor.

"Greetings," he pumps Peeta's hand, then mine, then Effie's, with surprising vigour for someone who doesn't look like he'd have much energy in him at all, "you must be Mr. Mellark, Miss Everdeen and Ms Trinket, of District Twelve? I am Mr. Eldergast, proprietor of the Underground District."

The Underground District? I've never heard of it. I'm wondering whether to make this known, when Peeta speaks up.

"What's that?" he asks in that blunt way of his. "I've never heard of it before."

"That," replies Mr. Eldergast with a smirk, "is because it is a classified Capitol secret. It is where Capitol renegades are sent – people in the Capitol who refuse to follow Capitol rules. There are far more of them than you'd think, and we cannot just make all of them Avoxes… So, as punishment for certain crimes, they are sent to live in the Underground district."

Why is he telling us this? Do all Victors become privy to classified Capitol secrets?

"Are we going there now?" Peeta wants to know, and Eldergast nods.

"What for?" I ask before I can help myself, "why would you need to show us this place?"

"Life in the Underground District is another Hunger Games in itself, more ferocious and unpredictable than even the Games you were participants in. Down there, children are mentored by their parents to become strong enough to survive, but there are no winners. It is only a matter of time. We want you to join them, for a time. Partake in their Games for a month or so… The Victors take on those in the Underground District. That will give the Capitol some entertainment."